When I was just over three years old, my parents introduced me to my newborn baby sister, Melanie.  I have a faint memory of sitting on the concrete front porch step with my grandma, watching for them to drive home from the hospital.  It was early July and I waited with longing – mostly just eager to see my mom again.

The rest of those details are fuzzy and likely my “memories” are more rooted in the stories I’ve been told.  The transition away from being an only child was not easy on me and I felt frustrated at the need to share my mom’s time and attention with this tiny interloper.  As the story goes, about a week or so into being a big sister, I asked my parents if they could “bring her back.”  I recall her newborn cries and the instant response that would get from my mom, and I was ready for that, all of it, to be done.

Fast-forward a month or so.  It’s still warm and we’re outside on a slab of concrete behind the house where we had a picnic table and a grill.  I’ve started to warm up to baby Melanie and I’m trying to impress my mom by “helping.”  As I remember it, my mom was sitting at the picnic table and I was on the cement ground, next to Melanie. She was content and drifting off to sleep in one of those bucket-style rocker chairs.  I was trying to rock her and my “help” went a little too far, causing her to slide out of the chair and bump her little, infant head smack on the cement.

The scene quickly changed from the idyllic quiet of our small town summer neighborhood to the sharp wailing of my baby sister and the intense panic of my mom.  I don’t think she had precisely seen what happened but scooped up Melanie from the ground, holding her close and yelling at me, with fear in her voice.

“What happened?!  What did you do?” she asked.

I tried to explain that I rocked her too hard and she fell, but I don’t know how much of that came across.  My mom ran into the house, frantically trying to dial my dad at work.  He was a pharmacist and regarded by us (and most of our family and friends) as the local medical professional on things that expanded far outside his scope. 

She tried the pediatrician too, all the while Melanie wailing in the background – likely more as a reaction to the intense fear and panic she could sense in my mom, than as a result of any true physical pain.  I remember my mom going to the build-in bookshelf near the front door and pulling out a huge, hard covered medical book.  She looked up head-injuries and navigated the dense pages to do her own reading and research on what to watch for.  As it turned out, crying was a good sign.  And slowly the fear started to dissipate.

I’m sure the doctor eventually called back too.  And, as you can expect, Melanie was totally fine.  No damage – temporary or permanent.  But the intensity and vividness of my mom’s fear and my 3-year-old worry and guilt are something I’ll never forget.  It was likely in that moment that I realized my own love for my little sister.  As it turned out, I didn’t want her to go away after all.  And I definitely did not want to be the source of causing my mom that much fear and anguish, ever again.